


Cup of Love

by MegaChoirQueer



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Christmas Fluff, Coffee, Community College, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Rivalry, Tea, friends to rivals to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28239870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegaChoirQueer/pseuds/MegaChoirQueer
Summary: New and non-traditional student Dean Winchester gets paired with the introverted but slightly-pretentious kid he's never talked to before for a debate project and he finds out they have more in common than not. But when their English class project becomes a campus-wide campaign for which Winter Hot Beverage reigns supreme, adrenaline-loving, coffee enthusiast Dean and mellow, tea-sipping Castiel clash heads in a race to win the popular vote of their school's Winter Debate, and get their friends, siblings, and many innocent bystanders wrapped up in the tension of their heated rivalry in the process. After all, all is fair in love and war.
Relationships: Ash & Gabriel (Supernatural), Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Cup of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hollyblue2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyblue2/gifts).



> This fic is a Destiel Secret Santa gift for envydean on tumblr/hollyblue2! I know you asked for something AU! It's a bit outside my comfort zone, but I was really excited about this idea and hope you enjoy the story! The following chapters should be ready within the following days <3 Merry Christmas & happy holidays to all and especially to envydean!

Chapter 1

“Settle, settle, everyone. I know how riveting Kafka can be, but we’re going to transition into a new assignment,” Professor Crowley spoke.

Thank god, Dean thought to himself. It’s not that he didn’t like reading, but the story they had just finished was so depressing, and kind of confusing. What, some guy turns into a bug and just never goes back to normal? What kind of story was that? Perhaps, he wondered, if it was just him. After all, it had been so long since he had done any sort of school work.

It was his first semester at Lawrence Community College, at the ripe age of 24. He knew it wasn’t that old, comparatively to many other folks who attended the school, which gave him some reassurance. He would be the first to tell everyone else how they needed to work at their own pace, and there is no right way to do things, but he was always bad at following his own advice, and never quite felt comfortable with how far behind he felt in the class. He was smart, he knew it, but it was all of the rules that drove him mad: the MLA format, the deadlines, all the things that didn’t seem to really matter to him. Luckily, their professor took a liking to him, and generally cut him some slack because of his witty comments.

Besides, Professor Crowley never seemed to have it all-together. Their classes were anything but structured, which is why it was Dean’s favorite class. It was usually just watching videos and getting into silly debates with fellow classmates and occasionally the professor himself. He always found himself muttering something sarcastic about the professor to Charlie, the best friend he’s made on campus so far. From time to time, Prof. Crowley would stumble into class blatantly drunk, and Charlie would just text him a beer glass emoji, which became their first inside joke.

Today was, unfortunately, not one of those days, and instead of just showing a video, he was actually making them do work. But now their conversation about Metamorphosis was over, so maybe the next hour would be something fun.

“As part of our general curriculum, we traditionally have a debate assignment. Bela, would you be a doll and pass around the syllabus?” He paused to give one of the students the stack of papers. Continuing, he spoke, “Here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to count off by ehhh.. thirteen. Go!” he demanded, pointing in the front left corner of the class room at Kevin Tran.

“One?” he asked hesitantly, with the professor giving him a sarcastic nod.

“Two,” the student next to him, Hannah, said.

As this went on, Dean looked around the room at all of the familiar faces. Admittedly, he hardly knew any of their names. It was already the week back from Thanksgiving break, and yet he hadn’t paid attention to so many of his classmates. It’s not that Dean didn’t pay attention, in fact, he was one of the most outgoing students in the class. It was just that many of his fellow classmates were reserved and he typically only interacted with the most passionate of students, like Charlie, Hannah, and Gabriel. There were a couple of others he remembers from past group assignments, like Jody and Donna, who were quite a bit older than him. He also knew Jo and Ash from long before they shared this class with him. They were both sort of family friends, if that was the word for it. He and Jo were great friends going up in school together, but after high school graduation, they didn’t talk as much, so it was nice to see her here. But the rest? He had almost no idea - and instead remembered them just by their looks. There was the skinny rich girl who was passing out the papers, the older guy with the gruff beard, the boy with the pretty blue eyes, the edgy e-girl with the leather jacket…

“Mr. Winchester!” he heard before looking up to see Professor Crowley’s irritated smirk.

“Oh uhhh,” he muttered, realizing he had been paying no attention to the order they were calling numbers.

“Seven” the instructor said with an exasperated sigh.

“Oh, yeah. Seven” Dean responded. He looked to his right to give Charlie a shrug.

He followed the trail of students with his eyes behind him, until the back row wrapped around to the row next to him, up to Charlie who said, “Twelve!” enthusiastically, then lastly to class clown Gabriel, who sat in the very top right corner of the room, who announced he was the number thirteen.

“Fantastic, most of you know how to count. I’m so proud,” the professor said sarcastically in his typical, snarky British accent. “Now, when I’m done, you’ll find your partner and,”

As students began to shuffle around the room, Dean looked around, starting to pack up his stuff as well to follow along with the rhythm of the class. He scanned the room for anyone who might be looking back at him until the professor sternly knocked on the table and shouted, “I said when I’m done, in case none of you animals know how to listen!”

A girl Dean had hardly noticed in the front center of the class cleared her throat loudly, to which the professor responded, “My apologies. In case none of you animals know how to follow instructions, I should say,” he said, looking back at the girl. He continued, “When you find your partner with the same number, what I want you to do is review the syllabus. Then, I want you to find something that you and your partner disagree on. It could be anything, but I find it’s best if you avoid the touchy stuff, you know. Nobody wants to hear some loud-mouth talk about the confederate flag or whatever racist American garbage you learned in high school. Pick something reasonable, will you? Then you’ll spend the week outlining and preparing a debate on the issue. All the details are on the syllabus, as per usual. Next week, we’ll start right away, and we should be able to finish by the end of class if everything goes smoothly. Am I clear?”

Dean gently nodded his head towards the professor, as well as most of his other classmates.

“Okay, go ahead, and find your partners. Get to the chit-chat!” he said, before lounging back in his chair, and pulling up his cell phone.

Dean stood up to look around the room, but no one was looking back at him. He glanced over at Charlie, who was already was walking over to a middle-aged woman with jet black hair, with a giddy smile on her face. When Charlier looked back over at him, she gave him a wink, and he couldn’t help but laugh. Turns out, maybe Dean wouldn’t need to be her wingman after all, considering Charlie had mentioned several times wanting to “chat up the sassy MILF near the back of the class”.

Dean kept looking until he saw a blonde guy playfully shove the boy with the bright blue eyes towards his direction. He walked over after gathering his belongings and shyly asked, “Um, seven?”

“Yeah, man! It’s, uh, Casey right? Or Kaison? Cay-“

“Cas,” he interrupted abruptly. “My name’s Cas,” he said, his head looking down at the ground.

“You good?” Dean asked, noticing his awkward posture. He wondered if not knowing his name had upset him.

“Yes,” he said succinctly, looking back up, and rigidly nodding his head. Dean couldn’t help but to chuckle quietly to himself. The mannerism was kind of adorable.

“Alright, well sit down, pull up a seat,” he gestured, pulling the chair out of the table next to him on Cas’s behalf. “Let’s get started! The name’s Dean, by the way.”

Cas smiled back at him, and asked, “So, Dean, should we read the syllabus first then?” Cas asked, the paper being the only thing out on the desk where he sat.

“Nah,” Dean replied, “we can read that on our own time. Why don’t we figure out what we wanna talk about first?”

Dean was so excited about this project, he could hardly contain himself. He dreaded writing essays. Pulling a thesaurus out just so it look like he knew academic words, making sure all the margins were the right distance apart, citing all the works in alphabetical order… it was so much. But a debate? Oh, he knew how to argue! He practically grew up arguing with his little brother every day, and usually winning. Negotiating, bargaining, challenging people… it was the only way that he knew how to survive, so he never felt so confident about his grade in a class before.

“Well, let’s see. Maybe we can talk about school. Like, do you think that LCC should offer more weekend classes to assist students in the workforce?”

“I mean, yeah, sure. If it would help people. I’m for anything that helps people,” he responded without too much thought to the question.

“Hmmm…” Cas articulated to himself. “What about more dining options on campus? Currently, we only have Thelma’s Burger Stop at the Student Union building and the snacks you can buy at the bookstore.”

“Yes. Hell yes,” he answered quickly. “I mean, as much as I love the Burger Stop, you can never go wrong with more food.”

“What’s your favorite thing at the Burger Stop?” the other student asked inquisitively, tilting his head slightly to the left.

“The number 7, duh! Western double cheeseburger: fried onion rings with barbecue sauce and bacon, all on two Angus patties with cheese slapped in the middle? It’s awesome,” he remarked.

“Really?” Cas asked, his eyes lighting up. “That’s my favorite too! I get it every time I go over there.”

“They’re so good right? And the toasted sesame buns? Mmm they’re so good!”

“One time, Gabriel,” he said with a gesture over to the student who had been sitting in the back talking to Jo now, “he made me eat six burgers in one sitting on a dare.”

“What? That’s crazy! Six burgers? I mean, I love them, but I don’t know if I could hold it down,” he said, his face glowing with his amusement.

“I.. uhh.. didn’t,” he said matter-of-factly, his lips pursed and his eyes looking right into Dean’s.

Then, Dean just couldn’t stop laughing. He never expected to get along so well with the shy blue-eyed boy in the back of his class, and yet he was turning out to be rather comical. The thought of this shy little guy going up to Thelma’s Burger Stop and ordering six double cheeseburgers for himself, just to down them and then run to the bathroom? It was quite a mental image to imagine, and the mere idea of it made Dean cackle with laughter and smile back at Cas.

“Is that funny?” he asked, wrinkling his brow in confusion.

“Yeah, man. That’s hilarious. Do you like… hangout with Gabriel?” He wondered how Cas knew him. They didn’t really seem similar at all, but not all friends are alike, he tried to remind himself.

“Yeah. He’s my,” he looked over back at Gabriel, clearly pondering something in his mind. With a few moments of hesitation, he said, “He’s my brother.”

“Oh,” Dean said, surprised. “That’s - that’s cool. I just never would have guessed. You guys just…”

“Look different?” Cas said, finishing his sentence.

“Uh yeah, just a little. But, no. I can totally see it. You guys like… have the same…” Dean looked behind Cas, to the jokester making Jo giggle in the back, searching for some sort of resemblance.

Cas interjected, “We’re adopted.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“How about you? Do you have siblings?” Cas asked him.

Dean’s face lit up. “Yeah, my little brother Sammy. He’s the reason I’m even here. Practically threatened to drop out before I told him if he finished his last semester up, I’d start taking classes here too. And I am always a man of my word.”

“That’s really kind of you to do that for him. I’m sure he’s very proud of you,” Cas said affirmingly.

“Heh, yeah. But I’m so much more proud of him. It hasn’t been easy on him, ya know. He’s been going through a lot. I’m just happy to see him get an education and maybe one day he can move on to do something good for himself, you know? Get out of Lawrence, see the world.”

“And how about you? What do you want?” he asked.

“As long as Sammy’s happy, I’m happy.”

“I’m sure. You sound like a great brother to him. But what do you want?”

Dean wondered what it was about the young man next to him that made him feel so seen. Not many people have taken the time to ask Dean what he wanted. Of course, the clerks at the Burger Stop always asked what he wanted, and Sam would always begrudgingly shout from his room when Dean called him, “Ughhh what do you want?” But this guy? Cas? Something about him made him just want to lay his whole soul bare, and he couldn’t explain it.

“I don’t really know. I’ve… I’ve tried so many things. Worked at warehouses, worked at bars. Right now, I’m a mechanic over at Singer’s Auto Body. I like cars, but I don’t know if it’s what I want to do with the rest of my life. Right now, I’m just trying to get through the semester, and help Sammy get on his feet. Then, who knows?”

Cas smiled gently at him, and raised his eyebrows. It felt so nice to talk to someone. He loved talking with Charlie, but most of the time they were just goofing around and making dirty jokes. And even though he knew Sam would listen, it just didn’t feel right to place his worries on him. He wanted Sam to give his focus to his education and his own happiness. But Cas? He was a great listener.

Wondering what he could learn from his new friend, he asked in return, “How about you? I mean, what brings you here?”

“Right now I’m working towards transferring to a four-year college. I’d like to get a degree in social work and help the local community,” he answered.

“Wow, that’s really awesome, Cas! So how much longer until you can transfer?”

“Hopefully, I can get in all of my prerequisites by the spring, so that next year I can move on, but I don’t know for sure.”

“I hear ya,” Dean added, wanting to empathize with him.

“But enough about me, we should find something we can disagree on, for the assignment,” Cas said, changing the subject.

Dean sighed. He was actually really getting to like this Cas guy. He didn’t know a lot of people at LCC yet, besides his brother, Jo, and Ash. He knew Charlie now, which was nice, but he figured it would be nice to have another friend that’s actually a dude. But he felt doubt, thinking maybe he just wanted to get the assignment over and done with.

“How about music? If you tell me you don’t like Zeppelin, I’m legally bound to turn you into the fuzz,” he said, trying to joke more with the young gentleman.

“I love Led Zeppelin! My favorite song by them is probably “Stairway to Heaven”,” he said, excitement painted on his face.

“No way! That’s my favorite too! Well that and “Ramble On”, but, gosh, it’s so hard to pick just one favorite! Man, that’s awesome!”

“Yeah, my brother was the one to really get me into them,” Cas said.

Dean asked, “Gabriel?”

“No,” Cas answered, “Balthazar.. er.. Baz,” he mumbled, pointing to the blonde guy that shoved him earlier.

“Oh you have two brothers in this class?” Dean asked, nervous for a reason he didn’t understand.

“Yeah, they love to bother me,” he said, letting out a low huff of amusement. “Gabriel is kind of a resident student here, he’s been here for like 5 years and taken every class you can think of. Balthazar was attending business school until they saw that his English credit was faked so he had to come back here for it. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t kick him out.”

“All due respect, Balthazar? What’s with the name?” he asked, hoping his tone of humor would come across, and not leave him just sounding like a jerk.

“Ehh… my parents are kind of intense. They’re those really religious people that adopt like a ton of children and homeschool them all, ya know?”

“Actually, I do. They have a show about people like that I think,” Dean said, smirking from his own comedy.

“Ha, yeah. There’s Gabriel and Balthazar that are here. And then there’s Michael and Uriel and Zachariah and Raphael, and then me.”

“Cas? Doesn’t sound super biblical to me,” he noted.

His new friend responded, “Castiel. The angel of Thursday, supposedly.”

“Wow, your parents weren’t messing around, were they? I don’t think I could handle that many brothers, I’d go crazy.”

Cas said, “To be frank, I don’t know most of them very well. A lot of them were adopted long before I was even born. All of them except Balthazar and me were adopted as young teenagers. They’re all in their 30s and 40s now, so they have their own lives.”

“Oh, gotcha. Well family can be a weird thing sometimes, huh?” Dean said, knowing full well how true it was.

“So,” Cas said, trying to change the topic again, “how about Apple or Android?”

“Apple because I don’t live under a rock, Cas. You?

“Oh yeah, Apple for sure. I can see why people would like some of the features of the Android phones, but I just can’t get myself to switch,” he responded.

“I guess, but when I see that green bubble pop up when I first send a text, like… I’m judging, you know?” Dean said. He couldn’t help it, he just really loved to make this kid laugh.

“Ok, well there’s gotta be something we disagree on,” Cas said, playfully rolling his eyes.

“How about we talk it over a burger tonight?” Dean asked.

“Uhhh…” Cas trailed off in hesitation.

Oh no, Dean thought. He was always so bad at making male friends, and he couldn’t get it. Why was he so awkward? He could make friends with every woman in the room, but when it came to getting to know another guy, Dean just was such a weirdo. He couldn’t help it, he just would always take a joke one step too far or say something to cross a line and make people uncomfortable. “I mean, or not. If not, that’s, like, totally okay too. Don’t worry about it,” he said, trying to amend the situation.

“Oh, no, I’d love to. I’m just so tired and I have a morning class tomorrow.”

“Ugh morning classes SUCK. I was taking one the first week and then I dropped before they could mark me for it. I usually drink coffee when I wake up but that week I had to drink like 4 cups in the morning to keep my energy up,” Dean shared, trying to relate more to him, and hoping to diffuse the awkwardness.

“I know, right? I have to go to bed so early, just to wake up feeling rested. So yeah, I’m just gonna go home and curl up with a hot cup of tea and go right to sleep when I get home,” he said, closing his eyes for effect to express the comfort he was looking forward to.

“You like tea?” he asked, wincing his face.

“Yeah, of course. You don’t?” Cas asked, tilting his head again.

“Ew no. It’s just steamy leaf water!” Dean exclaimed.

“Steamy leaf water? You just said you drank four cups of coffee every day for a week,” Cas retorted.

“Ah! Four cups in the morning. Not including afternoon and 5 p.m. drinks!” Dean replied.

“So you’ll call tea leaf water, but you’re fine with drinking anxiety bean-juice?”

“Hell yeah. Gets the blood pumping!” Dean said, with a silly grin on his face, knowing full well where this conversation was headed.

“Exactly! It’ll give you a heart attack. You can’t possibly have that much coffee and still be healthy” Cas said, passion in his bright ocean eyes, and his face painted in shades of red.

“Watch me,” Dean said, leaning close to Cas. He could feel the hair stand up on his skin as he made his bold and challenging statement. His words felt electric escaping from his throat, as if it were lightning waiting to strike ground. Nervous, he stood in place, asserting his proposition with nothing more than false confidence and self-loathing hubris.

“Well, Dean,” Cas said, with the same smirk on his face, “I guess we know what our debate will be on.”


End file.
